Reminders
by lovablegeek
Summary: [PreRENT] There are reasons Benny's with Mimi, even if he doesn't want to admit them to himself – most of those reasons have to do with his little sister. BennyMimi, vagueBennyApril, mention of BennyAlison. [One shot]


There are reasons Benny's with Mimi. There are reasons for everything, of course, but there are reasons that he's sleeping with an eighteen-year-old girl, that he's cheating on his wife, that he ever let any of this happen in the first place. He'd like to pretend that there aren't any reasons, or that he doesn't know them, or that they're different from what they are, but the fact of the matter is that there are, and he does, and they are what they are.

She reminds him of April from their first meeting – something about her smile has that same edge of mischievous childishness to it, the smile April would wear when she'd dare him into doing something, like he was still ten years old or something. The first time he meets Mimi, it's like seeing a ghost when she flashes him that smile, and his heart almost stops for a second until he regains his composure, until he remembers that his sister died one month, one week, and four days ago, and it can't be her sitting there, grinning at him, about to ask him to do something outrageous and then goad him into it with the words "I dare you." He blinks and the image of April disappears, enough that he can see the differences – this girl's a little shorter than April, the shade of her skin slightly lighter, facial features slightly more rounded. Not his sister.

She saunters over to him confidently, still with that smile, half a dare, though he can't even guess at what the dare _is_. "Hey. I'm Mimi."

Simple as that, bold, confident... He hesitates, and then gives her a flicker of a smile in return. He can't help it – if he looks straight at her, she doesn't look all that much like her, but turn and out of the corner of his eye there's_ April_, standing there and alive again. "Benjamin Coffin the Th–" He cuts himself off in the middle of the word, bites his lip and changes his mind. "Benny."

* * *

_"Benny?"_

_The ten-year-old boy looked up suspiciously, familiar with that tone. It was the one April got when she wanted something from him, and being April, she was stubborn enough not to give up most times until he gave it to her. Given that, he had ample reason to be a bit suspicious just then. "...What?"_

_"I wanted to ask you something." She stood by the arm of the couch, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet, barely contained energy._

_"What?" It always took her forever to actually ask him a question, instead of just coming out with it. He wasn't sure if she ever realized just how much that annoyed him, or if it was simply an unconscious ability._

_"You wanna come with me to the park? Mom won't let me go by myself, but if you go too..."_

_He rolled his eyes and looked back to the television. "I don't want to go to the park."_

_She was quiet for a moment, and he didn't look at her, because he had the feeling she'd be pouting at him. Then, after a moment, she moved a little closer to him, leaned over and whispered in his ear with her hand cupped around her mouth, "We're not really going to the park."_

_He frowned at her. "Where're we going, then?"_

_She shrugged. "Iunno. Somewhere. It'll be fun."_

_"What if we get lost?"_

_"We'll find our way back!"_

_"April..."_

_And then she flashed him that smile, at once teasing and mocking and daring, and how she managed it he'd never know but it worked every time. "I dare you."_

* * *

She isn't April, but she's close enough that he wants her to stay around, close enough that he wants _her_, and looking at her Benny doesn't see Mimi – just April. Just in little flashes here and there, but enough that he'll do anything to keep seeing those flashes, to let himself think for the space of two seconds that she's alive and there with him. It never lasts any longer than those two seconds, but it's enough. Almost.

He should leave, he knows. Go back to his home, back to his wife, but instead somehow he ends up sitting in a bar in the Village, talking to Mimi. He used to end up doing a lot of things he probably shouldn't have, when April was around, and it seems Mimi has that same effect on him. Maybe that ought to concern him, bother him, something, and there is a vague sort of disquiet in the back of his mind, but not enough to make him even start to consider leaving.

Mimi slips onto his lap, unabashedly bold, and grins at him brightly – for all that she's only eighteen, that smile has nothing innocent about it. She asks him, softly, if he wants to go back to her apartment with her. That softness isn't shyness, certainly, as her voice has a low, husky edge to it that makes him catch his breath, and he can see that she knows it. And he knows that he shouldn't agree... but he does anyway, knowing he never stood a chance.

* * *

_"You know there's pretty much no chance of you winning this, right?" April asked, grinning across the table at Benny. Roger grinned and stuck his tongue out at Benny, obviously in agreement with April, while Mark just rolled his eyes and ignored them – Benny and April always got like this whenever the four of them played cards, sibling rivalry or something of the sort. And, as always, Benny ended up doing his best at responding calmly and somehow ending up sounding like he was ten years old again._

_"So what, you're going to win? Come on, April, everyone knows girls can't play cards."_

_He grinned teasingly, while April glared at him. "I can too. And for that matter, I can kick your ass."_

_"Oh, please–" he began, and was cut off as April all but_ tackled _him. Benny abruptly found himself out of his chair, flat on his back on the floor, with April straddling his chest. Benny could only blink up at her for a second, trying to figure out just how that had happened. "Okay, that wasn't fair."_

_Peering down at the two of them, Roger sighed, "So, are you two going to play cards or screw around?"_

_"Well," April said innocently, "I would, but Benny says girls can't play cards."_

_Benny sighed. "April, please get off me."_

_"Take back what you said."_

_He rolled his eyes. "Okay."_

_Still grinning, April leaned down to put her hands on his shoulders, her face an inch or two from his. "Admit I can kick your ass."_

_"What?"_

_"Benny? I'm sitting on you right now."_

_"Fine. You win."_

_April beamed and leaned down to kiss his cheek, right at the corner of his mouth, before pushing herself off of him and bouncing back to her seat. "So. Where were we?"_

* * *

It always came down to "somehow" with April. Somehow he let her talk him into doing any damn thing she wanted him to do. Somehow he ended up sprawled on the floor with his little sister on his chest, pinning him to the ground. Somehow he didn't particularly mind that she had, that she'd kissed him, or...

It's exactly the same with Mimi. Somehow he ends up talking to her. Somehow he decides to stay there with her instead of going back home. Somehow he agrees to go back to her apartment – right downstairs from the loft, and he wonders how he didn't know before that she lived there – and he just can't manage to track the course of events that led him here, it's all a blur of "somehow", "one way or another", and "for some reason" that all leads up to this moment, sitting here in her apartment. It's a lot like the loft – smaller, but it's got that same feel of semi-organized chaos, messy but welcoming.

He sits on the couch, and she's in his lap in a second, smooth and confident. Benny realizes that her movements aren't quite like April's – smooth and feline rather than bouncy and exuberant – but she has the same air of proprietary ownership, as if she has every right to be sitting wherever she damn well pleases, up to and including Benny's lap. April used to pounce on him and sit on his lap from time to time, and just ignored any protests, so Benny doesn't even try to protest Mimi sitting there, out of habit.

But this close to her, even in the low lighting, he can't possibly miss the track marks on her bare arms, too familiar with the sight of them on his sister and Roger not to see they're there. And it should warn him off any involvement with her, probably, but somehow that one more similarity with April makes him want to stay all the more.

* * *

_Once or twice every couple of weeks, Benny would blow up about Roger and April, the drugs or something, and start yelling at Roger, occasionally take a swing at him. Once or twice every couple of weeks, Roger would shove Benny up against the wall, and if Benny refused to back off, generally kicked the crap out of him. Today was, clearly, one of those days._

_Roger gripped Benny's shoulders and slammed his back against the wall, glowering at him. "I didn't fucking do anything to her!"_

_Benny growled and tried to shove him away, unsuccessfully. "You got her into the drugs, and you're going to ruin her life or kill her or both!"_

_It was the same argument they had every time this happened, and neither of them ever gained any ground. This time April happened to be present, standing halfway across the room with her arms wrapped around herself as she watched the two of them with an expression of deep concern. "Roger, Benny, please just... stop!" she said pleadingly, but Benny ignored her, shoving Roger again, harder than before, so he pushed him a few steps back. Roger lunged forward again angrily, and April shouted at them to stop, jumping to step between them when neither of them listened._

_"Guys, cut it _out_!"_

_Benny stepped back immediately – April had to put her hands on Roger's shoulders and push him a couple steps backwards before he would back off. "April, you know I didn't–"_

_"You_ jackass_," Benny interrupted, "you–"_

_April stopped him with a glare, and then turned back to her boyfriend. "Roger, please go somewhere else for a while."_

_"April..."_

_"_Go_."_

_Roger growled, turned, and stalked out of the loft, slamming the door behind him. April looked up at Benny with a pained look. "Do you have to provoke him?"_

_"Provoke him?" Benny sighed and pushed past her to sit down on the couch, trying not to look at her, at her bare arms with the fresh track marks, the thing that had set off this particular bout screaming match with Roger. "Before you met him you were... different. Now you're..." He couldn't say it. His sister, his baby sister, was a fucking addict._

_"It's not Roger's fault," she murmured softly, following him quietly to the couch and sitting down on his lap, frowning at him slightly, seeking his eyes. He wouldn't meet them, knowing that if he did she'd be able to talk him into anything. "I just... _need_ it."_

_"April," Benny sighed, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head against his chest and whispered, "Benny, please don't be mad at him," and he could only wince and put his arms around her and pretend this wasn't happening, pretend everything was normal and the way it was supposed to be._

* * *

"Spend the night with me," Mimi says, and kisses him while her hands run up under his shirt, over his chest. It's not really a question, Benny can tell, but rather an order, and one he's all too tempted to obey, but... he could still back out at this point. He could back out, and go home, to Alison, and pretend none of this ever happened, have his life as it should be, normal and ordinary, the way it was supposed to be. But the word "no" doesn't come immediately to his lips, he doesn't jerk away from her or push her off his lap, just closes his eyes and leans into her kiss, his own hands resting on her waist and slowly, hesitantly sliding up...

Mimi pulls away from him after a moment, and smiles brightly, head to one side. "Well? What do you say?" She looks so painfully, heartbreakingly young with that smile. She looks so painfully like his sister – she looks like a ghost. And there's that smile, teasing, challenging, daring, forcing him to some decision, and always the one he knew was wrong, always the one he'd have avoided if it weren't for that smile that could always talk him into anything, once April's and now Mimi's.

And when, after a moment or two, he nods slightly and pulls her to him to kiss her again, murmuring against her lips, "Yes," he knows he's decided to stay _because_ she has his sister's smile.

* * *

_"April!" Benny called as he hung up the phone. There was no answer from her room, though he knew she was home, and after a moment he called again, "Hey, April!"_

_After a moment she bounded to the door of her bedroom, hanging on both sides of the door frame and hanging out as she grinned at him. "Yeah?"_

_"They said you can go pick up the results of your blood test today. The woman on the phone said it was important."_

_April rolled her eyes and walked out into the living room, sitting on the back of the couch with her feet on the cushions. The only reason she'd gone to get the blood test was because Benny had insisted on it, and she didn't seem to particularly care now what the results were. "Can't you get it for me?"_

_"No, April, you have to go yourself. They probably wouldn't give them to me anyway."_

_"But you're my brother! Why wouldn't they?"_

_He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I don't know, April, that's just how it works. I have to go to work now –_ please _go get your results, _today_. And call me once you have."_

_He was halfway to the door when he said it, but he paused, and waited for her response – a roll of her eyes and a sarcastic, "Yes, mother."_

_"April..."_

_She grinned at him teasingly. "I'll go, Benny. I promise."_

_"Okay. Love you."_

_April rolled her eyes and hopped off the couch, heading back to her room, though she was still smiling, her uniquely April-smile. "Love you too, Benny."_

_He never would have walked out that door if he'd known it would be the last time he'd see her smile._

* * *

She doesn't look like April if he _really_ looks at her, but lying on her bed in the dark, just looking at her in the half-light through the window from the streetlight outside, Mimi could _almost _be April. Almost, if not quite, and if he wants to he can _pretend_ she's April. Maybe he shouldn't be thinking about April at all, maybe he should try to forget her and the smile that wouldn't leave his mind, but it's too easy to grab at scraps of the past, bits and fragments as if he can piece them together to make a whole, to make _him_ whole, close up the part that hasn't quite scarred over from when she died. It's altogether too easy when he's got such a perfect reminder in the form of Mimi, when if he looks at her in the right way for a second she's _April_, when if he stays around her a little longer it'll be almost like bringing April back...

Almost, but not quite.


End file.
